Bulky System Requirements for Windows Vista

unsurreal writes ""A Tech Strategist within Microsoft, Nigel Page, has gone on record to discuss the hardware requirements for Windows Vista, due out next Christmas." The next year is going to be an interesting one as hardware vendors smile towards the shocking new recommended hardware needed for the next generation Windows operating system." From the article: "Graphics: Vista has changed from using the CPU to display bitmaps on the screen to using the GPU to render vectors. This means the entire display model in Vista has changed. To render the screen in the GPU requires an awful lot of memory to do optimally - 256MB is a happy medium, but you'll actually see benefit from more. Microsoft believes that you're going to see the amount of video memory being shipped on cards hurtle up when Vista ships." Coverage available at Tom's Hardware as well, with a semi-transcript at Tech Ed.

Comments

Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

For any other company sysreqs this high with such a small increase in functionality would be suicide.

Blizzard could make an operating system that had lower sysreqs and decent graphics capabilities. And people would love it for saying, "Zug Zug."

Hopefully it's a nail in their home-desktop coffins that suddenly you can't put their OS on a machine that costs 600$, but somehow I doubt it. Xbox 360 for what most people currently use a home PC for, Vista for everything else.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[CDMA_Demo]

I think people getting ready to do some M$ bashing should look into the past and go over microsoft's releases. When they released NT, windows 95, 98, 2000, xp they always went for the median hardware configuration of the upcoming 6 to 10 years. That is part of the reason you could run windows XP on a 32MB Pentium-II (I've done it, and it chugs along just fine, enough to run a browser for surfing and playing flash games).

From the article: 2GB is the ideal configuration for 64-bit Vista, we're told. Vista 32-bit will work ideally at 1GB, and minimum 512. However, since 64-bit is handling data chunks that are double the size, you'll need double the memory, hence the 2GB. Nigel mentions DDR3 - which is a little odd, since the roadmap for DDR3, on Intel gear at least, doesn't really kick in until 2007. Unlike Linux, windows is not under released constantly for free, so M$ releases snapshots of Windows: in 95, 97, 98, 99, 2000 etc. Such foresight is good in many ways, I mean how many features that Vista has are currently available in Linux distros? Maybe we don't need them, or maybe Linux developers haven't developed such good relations with hardware companies yet.

Now, for the XBox 360 issue, you should know (if you are interested in further scrutiny) that it uses IBM Power PC chips (similar to those used in Apple G5). Add a couple of perks to that architecture and remove some and it seems that 360 isn't that badly priced at all. I'd like to see the people trashing 360 show similar zeal in ridiculing the PS3 which ironically isn't all that different (except for its cell architecture) and could be priced in the same bracket as the 360.

Please continue wanking...

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[KillShill]

hardly.

have you seen current 600 dollar pcs?

they far outclass the 600 dollar mac mini and those run tiger.

by the time vista ships, 600 bucks will buy you a lot more power than you "need" to run vista.

if you turn off the eye-candy , it'll run as well as xp does today.

you have it wrong, hardware requirements are not a good reason not to get vista. there are much better reasons not to get it, like the massive DRM and financially supporting ms, which is as good reason as any.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Harbinjer]

While the PowerPC chips in the Xbox 360 may be similar in instruction set to the G5, the chips are VERY different. It uses only in-order instruction execution, and not out-of-order, which has been standard(for powerful CPU's) since at least the Pentium Pro(?) era, excepting the Itanium, which has the compiler do the OOO scheduling.

The XBox 360 has 3 very small and rather simple PowerPC cores, and the Cell uses 1 such core, and the 7(?) SPU's along with it.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

if you turn off the eye-candy , it'll run as well as xp does today.

Vista is nearly all eye-candy, if you strip off the eye-candy, all you have is XP with staggering DRM.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Tim C]

Hang on.

However, since 64-bit is handling data chunks that are double the size, you'll need double the memory, hence the 2GB.

64bit data is double the size of 32bit data? Just installing a 64bit version of an OS doubles your RAM requirements compared to the 32bit version?

Since when?

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[madprof]

This is an inaccurate post in certain ways I am afraid.
You cannot meaningfully talk about a "median" hardware platform over a 6-10 year time scale. That's at least 2 upgrade cycles in duration.
When I ran XP the first time I checked to see how much RAM it was using and it was over 64MB without anything else loaded up.
That's wasn't criminal on its release date and it doesn't tally with (assuming the hyperbole of reports is accurate) Vista requiring high-end hardware on release.

I am also baffled as to how Vista's alleged requirement for powerful hardware is at all 'foresight'. Of course it'll run better on faster hardware, everything does.

Here's a prediction - Vista will not require the massive resources people are fearing to run that well. At least you'll be able to buy a reasonably-priced PC that can cope fine.
Anything else would be commercially inept.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[toddestan]

Let's see a link to a $600 SFF PC that far outclasses the mac mini.

We all know that the Mac Mini is pretty much the most powerful computer you can buy in a package that small, so you Mac zealots can put that tired old line to rest.

However, for some people, size really doesn't matter that much. It's pretty much a fact that you can buy a heck of a lot more computer for the money if you don't mind it being the size of a breadbox rather than the size of a standard CD drive. And then there are some people who actually do like things like extra drive bays and PCI slots.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[geekoid]

why would we buy an OS when we have to turn off the only things in it that's an improvement?

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Rakshasa Taisab]

It does when Microsoft implements the 64bit OS.

64bit _code_ is usually 15% larger than 32bit, and I'd expect the larger address pointers to require comparable increase in the amount of memory for data structures.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[smiffy1976]

Win XP with 32MB does not 'chug along', unless you mean the HDD. 64MB is OK, anything less is painful...

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[ilyaaohell]

Xbox 360 for what most people currently use a home PC for, Vista for everything else.

If you ever stepped away from the PC and geek news sources, you'd quickly discovers that sales of the original Xbox are a fraction of PS2's sales, and that sales of the Xbox 360 will likely be even lower thanks to everybody waiting for PS3's release a few months later and people assuming that Killzone 2 is in-game footage.

It really boggles the mind sometimes. I frequent all sorts of geek news sites and gaming sites. Why is Slashdot so obsessed with the Xbox platform? I mean, ok, it's made by Microsoft, and therefore it's an automatic topic of discussion because computer geeks care a great deal more about Microsoft than Sony or Nintendo. But, let's be honest here, Microsoft's console had negligible impact on the gaming market, much less the computer geekary audience as a whole. Why do the Slashdot horde continually bring up this second tier gaming platform as if the Xbox is synonymous with console gaming? It ain't, PS2 is. And a year from now, PS3 will be.

Hopefully I won't be modded down too bad for this, but just in case, let me end on this: I do not own either a PS2 or an Xbox.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[DrCode]

I was just PC-shopping, and saw quite a few $600 PC's. While most under-$1000 PC's use on-board Intel graphics, there's a big 'gotcha' in the $600 range: No AGP or PCI-Express slot!

A lot of people buying in this range could get a nasty surprise if they find they have a need for a better graphics-controller.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Guy.Gregory]

640k should be enough for anybody.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Lumpy]

dude get a clue.

do you realize that the bulk of the pc's out there are P-III 866 or less? there still is a HUGE userbase of windows 98? Most people call their home pc "good enough". you do not need more than Windows 98 or 2000 on a P-III 550 with 256 meg of ram and NO 3d video card to go online, run that stolen copy of office 97 from the office, use tax-cut once a year and read email. those items cover 90% of all computer uses in the typical home.

Dont believe me? go house shopping. 9 out of 10 homes have a really stinking old PC. Hell I still see OKI dot matrix printers at people's houses once in a while, and I'm shopping the $200,000.00 price mark in michigan where that is considered a really nice house. (as opposed to the one room crapshack in da hood you would get in San Fransisco for that price)

People are not buying new pc's. Most will not upgrade until they buy a program they need and it will not run or refuses to install.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Jace of Fuse!]

(Nintendo barely survived, and Sega perished a few years later).

You were doing so well right up till this point.

Nintendo has never been and still is not in any danger of going anywhere. At any given time all of their supported platforms have many spots in the top 10 selling titles on the platform-wide charts. Their largest first party titles sell nearly as many copies as the most of even the best chart-busters on the other platforms.

Nintendo can sell less cubes than Microsoft sells boxes, and Nintendo is still shoving a flaming foot of victory right up Microsoft's ass because their volume of first party sales is so high.

To illustrate the point, take Halo for example. Nearly all XBox owners bought Halo 1 and Halo 2. Very few other titles on the XBox have enjoyed that kind of success. On the Gamecube, the list of chart-busting first party titles that sold to nearly anyone seriously playing their cube isn't limited to Metroid Prime 1 and 2. There's also Zelda, Mario, Pokemon, Smash Brothers, Starfox Assault, Mario Party, Double Dash, and so on. Keep in mind these are all Nintendo branded titles.

The situation was very similar on the N64 as well. It's just a basic fact that Nintendo has always relied very heavily on it's first party titles and has profited very handsomely as a result.

Nintendo didn't just barely survive. Nintendo has been doing exceptionally well. The falling value of the Yen the past few years has hurt Nintendo much worse than sales have.

Just because the numbers don't make it out to appear as if Nintendo is doing just fine doesn't mean it isn't the case. Microsoft continues to just piss away sewers full of money on the XBox, and many believe this will continue to be the case with the 360.

In the worst case scenerio that the falling support for the Cube will carry over into the Revolution, that doesn't change the fact that Nintendo still owns the handheld market.

Despite Sony's claims to the contrary, the GBA still dominates, and the DS is fat and happy with stellar sales. (Though I honestly wish I understood how Nintendogs has become so popular....)

There's also one other thing to remember.

Practically every Gamecube player is still waiting for Twilight Princess, delayed though it may be.

If the Xbox is lucky, it MIGHT see one last huge seller before the 360 replaces it. Don't count on it, though.

(BTW - DC, PS2, XBox, GC, GBA, DS, PSP... Yes, I got'em all...)

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

XP Pro - Bittorent - 0$
MS Office 2003 - Bittorent - 0$
Every game you can think of - Bittorent - 0$

Total - 0$

Hell, why stop there. Get a brick and a pair sneakers and that Overdrive PC sitting in the shop window is yours. Don't forget to steal a Das Keyboard.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[cbiltcliffe]

Well...eye candy, and a bunch of phone-home-to-Microsoft shit.

256mb?

[chkMINUS]

Yet another reason to use linux.

Re:256mb?

[thisisauniqueid]

Actually you'll need lots of memory for decent performance in gfx-accelerated Linux desktops soon too, due to the inclusion of a composite manager.

Re:256mb?

[fyoder]

Yet another reason to use linux.

Yet another reason not to upgrade from windows 2000 or XP. I read a post suggesting that the hardware requirements won't be that bad by the time it's released. Hardware requirements certainly won't be an issue by the time people are actually interested in upgrading which could be some ways down the road from the initial release.

I use and love linux, but if it gains market share it will be for reasons other than hardware requirements.

Re:256mb?

[slycer]

Well.. interestingly, yeah, it is.

One reason why - how is game performance going to be affected by the O/S requiring 256M of the GPU memory? How much does it release when you launch D3? How much *more* vid ram would you have by running linux?

Maybe it's a step for linux to be "the" viable gaming product. If you're seeing a 30fps increase just because you're using a different O/S, I think a lot of gamers will take a second look (of course it's the chicken and egg problem still)

Re:256mb?

[tchernobog]

No.

For me and you, probably, the reasons to use GNU/Linux are the same than {ten,five,three,n}-years ago.

For the [wo]man out there that knows just that "they has Internet, which is that blue icon right on the screen", it is Yet Another Reason to continue using XP/win98.

If everybody loved Free OSes we would probably live in a better world. If everybody was able to get along quietly with their neighbour without starting wars every few days, we would live in a better world.

Unfortunately neither will happen, due to the intrinsic nature of humanity, which includes stupidity, stubborness, and the need of a pointy stick.

Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[i41Overlord]

And then we can say how great Linux is!

Heard this before

[_pi-away]

Every new version of windows has beefed up the requirements, and I've always found them usable with less than they say.

Re:Heard this before

[Jazzer_Techie]

Windows will certainly be usable with less. Most of the GUI "eye-candy" in XP fails to be useful, not to mention less than aesthetically pleasing. The first thing that I do when I reinstall Windows (after patching it all up an installing Firefox) is to set it back to the Windows Classic theme. All of the eye candy inflates the sys reqs. I can't see myself sticking with the new Vista GUI either.

Re:Heard this before

[ackthpt]

Every new version of windows has beefed up the requirements, and I've always found them usable with less than they say.

I recall the first install of Win 95, the packaging said Minimum 8 MB RAM. Yes, if you don't mind paging on those slow old MFM/RLL 20/30 MB drives over your pokey ISA bus. 12 MB was manageable, with patience. 16 MB was tolerable. 24 MB and up was comfortable. This on a 33 MHz 486.

When I bought my first Pentium with 64 MB and Win 98 it was apparent almost from day 1 that 64 MB was just barely enough to run one application at a time. 2 apps and I was paging and anything over that and it was an exercise in masochism.

My 2.6 MHz Athlon started life with WinXP and 256 MB. Which was fine for the limited things I did, though I noticed (thanks to the task manager) that half of it was tied up before I launched any apps. 1.25 GB has made for a decent system. The first graphics card was a 64 MB generic card which cost a measely $37 and I keep it around for when the big deluxe card decides it's going to have a bad patch.

I think as much as I groan about XP that's where I'll stop with regard to Microsoft. I don't want to overburden my new 64 bit CPU just trying to do the basics.

Re:Heard this before

[cnettel]

In this case, there is even the possibility of turning off Aero and running in a somewhat improved XP. Avalon apps will suffer, but they will still work.

They want the Aero rendering to be considered fast and snappy. And, oh, it will possibly be so, but only on the right hardware. If they put the official requirements too low, it would just be said that the new interface is so full of eyecandy that it can't perform.

What's really interesting here is what they manage to pull of on laptops, together with ATI and Nvidia. Will the power management for graphics chips make sense, even when 3D mode doesn't equal "battery sucking gaming mode"? The (public) slides from Microsoft even from the very first mentioning of Longhorn's 3D UI stressed this aspect. It will be interesting to see the solution. If a Mactel box will provide a sleek UI with a charge keeping the machine powered for twice as long, that'll be a very real selling point.

Re:Heard this before

[welkin]

No, not really. Not me anyway...I have managed to get Panther to run on a '99 iBook with a 300 MHz G3 and a measly 164M RAM, by turning off the window minimization "Genie Effect" candy, by setting the Desktop changing feature to change wallpaper every day, as opposed to every five seconds, etc.

One may ask "why use OS X on a machine that was never meant to run it?" This is Slashdot, right?

Re:Heard this before

[guaigean]

For a rate of their beefing up...

Windows XP: 128MB RAM, 300MHz
Windows 2000: 64MB RAM, 133MHz
Windows 98: 16MB, 66 MHz
Windows 95: 4MB RAM, 386 or higher

I looked for some older requirements, but it's a good start, and shows approximately the equivalent of solid state advances etc. Yes, they beef it up, but fairly on par with new tech.

Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[Boap]

Looks like it is going to be a booming year for ATI and NVIDIA when Vista is released

Re:Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[Concerned Onlooker]

Not to mention anyone selling HDCP monitors:

...no current TFT monitor out there is going to support high definition playback in Vista. You may already have heard rumblings about this, but here it is. To play HD-DVD or Blu-Ray content you need a HDCP compatible monitor.

Re:Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[Fizzl]

HS: "Extended warranty! How could I lose!?"
Me: "Stock tips on /.! How could I lose!?"

seriously

[LiquidMind]

A: "wow, that's a sweet rig, where'd you get that?"
B: "It came with my purchase of Windows Vista."

It's kinda like those people that drive with huge-ass spoilers on their tiny cars. Did the car come with the spoiler or did the spoiler come with the car?

256MB of video memory?

[Paralizer]

Give me a break! It's an operating system, what technicial leaps must it render that requires so much memory? I can run Doom3 at 1024x768 at pretty high quality with my 128MB card without a problem, yet to render a few windows and a start bar I need twice that?

Eye-candy doesn't result in functionality Microsoft... shift your attention towards usability.

Re:256MB of video memory?

[Dutchmaan]

> ...and if sales started dropping that's exactly where their attention *would* go..

Right now, the bulk of windows purchasers are the same people who don't know any better and are more impressed with flashy graphics for their home PC than features that 99% of them will never use or never realize they are using.

Windows is the OS of the masses, yes it can be a good OS and in some respects it is, however... the bottom line is that Windows is being designed to appeal to people who buy the system based on what they *see*.

Re:256MB of video memory?

[Senjutsu]

Does anybody have comparisons for OS X machines? They render much of their OS in the GPU, right?

A lot of the lower end machines still ship with 32 Megs on the card, and run fine (provided you've got a decent amount of system memory). Obviously that's too low for serious gaming, but the OS has no troubles with that amount of memory on the GPU.

Having 256 on the GPU would be on the extreme high-end (only the highest end powermac ships by default with a card that big), not "a happy medium" for OS X.

Re:256MB of video memory?

[ColdGrits]

Well, in comparison, MacOS X 10.4 (which most definitely DOES use the GPU for a lot of the graphics work) required 256MB of system RAM - and a massive 16MB of graphics RAM!

  http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/requirements.h tml

Which does raise the question as to what the hell Microsoft are doing that means they require the same amount of graphics RAM as MacOS X needs for the system!

Re:256MB of video memory?

[IgLou]

Pinky, are you thinking what I'm thinking?

If the O/S uses 256 MB of graphic RAM how much of that will get released by the O/S when I want to run a really high resolution game?
HL 2 looked fairly good on 128 MB (what I have now). I wonder if they are purposely bloating the req speculatively or if this is the ideal just to run the O/S. *shudder*

Oh and who wants to bet on the number of companies that will buy these insane-o high powered systems to run Vista because XP won't be supported at that point. JOY!

I'm not even going to get into the rest "Where's my HDCP?"... trust me I won't ask that I'll be saying "Where is my capability to fairly copy works that I own!"

Re:256MB of video memory?

[b100dian]

I can run Doom3 at 1024x768 at pretty high quality with my 128MB card
Windows 95 had the same requirements of Quake 1. Need to generalize this??!

Re:256MB of video memory?

[Calroth]

Which does raise the question as to what the hell Microsoft are doing that means they require the same amount of graphics RAM as MacOS X needs for the system!

To be fair, Microsoft doesn't require a 256MB video card for Windows Vista. The requirement will probably be similar to Mac OS X: a video card that can display the resolution you want, at the colour depth you want. That's it.

The 256MB figure is for the new eye candy, and not just that, it's for the new eye candy to run at full speed and not start chugging or such. Mac OS X will also perform a lot smoother, the better video hardware you throw at it. Is 256MB excessive? Probably. But not a requirement.

Re:256MB of video memory?

[failure-man]

Wait until you see what clippy looks like at 30 FPS. :)

As long as I can take a rocket-launcher to him at 30fps it's all good . . . . .

Thank you Captain Obvious...

[Joe U]

Of course the requirements are going to be bulky by mid 2005 standards. Vista is due in 2006/7 and will reflect the mid to high end computer design for late 2006.

Also, these seem to be optimal, not minimum requirements, and from the article "minimum system requirements for Windows Vista will not be known until summer 2006 at the earliest." So, I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate that your average system today will work fine with Vista, but you won't have all the bells and whistles.

Finally, the '512 MByte is "heaps" for a 32-bit system. For a 64-bit system, however, "you're going to want 2 gigs of DDR3 RAM."' is off. If you are happy with 512, you'll be happy with 1GB. If you play lots of games, you most likely have 1GB now and you'll be happy with 2gb. And if you play EverQuest 2, you'll be happy with about 20gb, but it will still skip in places and you can't use the ultra-high resolution.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[KillShill]

virtual pc ring a bell?

through emulation at least.

you cannot emulate the DRM of the x86 mac or the "EULA" of the ppc macs but you can install the basic vista on a ppc machine. the DRM (secure boot) isn't mandatory or you'd have several billion computers that vista couldn't be installed on.

that's what i mean by artificial restrictions. you can buy mac os or windows and install on any chip arch/hardware if the manufacturers don't go out of their way to prevent it. DRM and the like are artificial restrictions. because even when you pay for the software, you are at the mercy of the vendor and don't really own it.

ironic that apple said they won't prevent people from installing windows on osx86 but yet the reverse isn't true. what's apple's excuse?

people who buy region 2-5 dvd discs cannot play them on unapproved hardware (i.e. hw that has the ability to play multi-region). the fact is, the dvd consortium et al have no right whatsoever to tell you what hardware you may use to play it back on. if we had some competent judges and legislators they wouldn't be allowed to artificially restrict discs/software/movies/music to certain hardware in the first place. it places undue harm on the customers for no gain in return.

any hardware that has the capability to play and use the purchase is perfectly ok and legal. but the corollary to that isn't for the manufacturer to build custom chips to circumvent the then right (if we ever see the day when congress and judges do the right thing) for users to choose their hardware.

why the heck not? they paid for it.

artificial restrictions. that's why.

Thanks, Bill!

[appleLaserWriter]

If a basic Windows box requires 256 MB of video RAM to run, then Macintosh OS X on x86 will definitely be the less expensive PC.

Perfect time to bust out that laptop!

[KingEomer]

We should be able to run this on our new 6.8Ghz 2TB HD 1TB RAM laptops!

No reason to deviate...

[erroneus]

My company has been on a gradual migration away from Microsoft products. We haven't made any aggressive step as of yet -- our desktops are mostly WinXP. Our servers are Linux and Novell with the occasional utility server running some form of MS Windows or another. We are testing Novell Linux Desktop but we aren't even close to a deployment plan yet.

But the capital expenses associated with this "upgrade" is needless and ridiculous even if we weren't planning to migrate to Linux.

I can see three things happening

[quickbasicguru]

Three things that I can see happening:
1)GNU/Linux goes mainstream faster
2)Macs go mainstream
3)Both 1+2

MS driving up HW prices?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is _this_ why hardware vendors like MS so much? MS continually drives up hardware requirements as time progresses, allowing hardware vendors to pack more into PCs and making people pay more for a PC they wouldn't normally need?

I don't know about you, but I really don't like this system of forced upgrades due to "enhancements." If I buy a computer that is 1000$, I expect it to be good for quite a long time. I think computers are at a point now where they can be treated as appliances, lasting for decades. If people just kept on using windows 2000/xp, a current day $500 PC would be good enough until the hardware dies. The problem is, that hardware just doesn't last that long these days. Ah well, maybe it's not a giant conspiracy, but I can see why Dell and such like their partnership with MS.

Well, maybe there are enough people like me who are fed up with upgrades, and they'll just stay with windows 2000/xp or use linux/*bsd.

Ho-hum

[Brunellus]

We're covering this as if most users were going to upgrade from XP to Vista, and will be thus compelled to shell out big bucks for new graphics cards, ram, disks, etc for their current computers just to run the new OS.

This is, of course, not the case. Most users who cannot upgrade will march blithely on with the OS they already have. I'm writing from work, where we're still using Windows 2000. The computer next to me is an ancient Pentium 133--and it runs Win95.

Home users will encounter Vista when they decide to buy a brand new computer, and from that perspective, they'll have gotten a shiny new OS with their shiny new hardware. Nobody will see the cost of the OS and the cost of the hardware to run it as separate things.

Released Next Christmas......Right

[mgpeter]

I am betting on it being released when the DOJ restrictions are lifted - November 2007

MS will never play fair, why should they start now (even though they are required to by law).

Hahaha!

[Dhaos]

What's the deal here? Are they -trying- to shoot themselves in the foot?

Businesses already have almost -no- incentive to switch to Vista. Now, instead of just buying expensive licences, they have to upgrade the graphics cards on their vanilla work PCs??

Has someone at MS gone patently nuts?

Yes, I know you will say "Microsoft will pull support for XP, and thus force everyone to upgrade." Maybe. But I think there will be backlash here.

And if you think that Vista is going to be exclusively for consumers, please tell me how Dell will provide $400 dollar machines with such beefy video cards!! It defies logic!

This is madness! Madness I say!

Re:Hahaha!

[mythosaz]

The AC gets *most* of the issue.

Most large companies are on 3-year PC refresh cycles already anyway. 3 years is a reasonable time to depreciate them off their books, and it's exactly how long Dell's extended warranty lasts on them.

When you want "a new PC" for an employee at any sufficiently large company, you place a request for the standard model. That standard model is "whatever Dell is selling this month, bundled with a license for whatever OS Microsoft is selling this year."

In our case, it just moved from the GX280 to the GX620. Next year, it'll be a machine that runs Vista just fine, and it'll cost almost exactly the same as the 280's from last quarter and the 620's from this quater. ...and they all pretty much cost the same as the GX1's that we bought to upgrade people to back at Y2K.

Gigantic Leap

[Spy Handler]

Windows XP Professional: 128 megabytes of RAM or higher recommended

Windows Vista: 2 Gigabytes of RAM recommended

WTF??

vectorized icons need 256MB?

[mistermark]

Hmmmz, my SGI Indy didn't need 256MB of videomemory to have vectorized icons... somehow I get the feeling Vista isn't the most efficiently programmed software/OS we've seen... ;-)

(and the Indy *did* ship with a journaling filesystem... XFS...)

Re:Third party replacement

[eobanb]

Wouldn't be too hard to write code to redirect all the 3d vector nonsense back into standard GDI calls.

Hey, great, let me know when you're done.

Ooops!

[winkydink]

I missed that all-important adjective "video". Never mind.

Ya, so?

[T-Ranger]

I could argue that 256mb cards will be a dime a dozen in 15 months, but all I have to say is:

256mb of vram should be enough for anyone.

Talk to me in 10 years and tell me then if you think that thats stupid.

A few things

[decipher_saint]

I am no Microsoft lover but I have to speak out here. Nigel Page originally said it would "work best" under that rather steep hardware configuration, any OS "should" work best under that configuration.

As of the beta 1, the unoptimized version works kick ass on an 1800XP, 512MB DDR & Radeon 9700. Unless you want to use crap like "Aero Glass" you won't need a high end vid card. Personally speaking, I'm still worried about the DRM monitor requirements and I am also a bit uninterested since so many features (i.e. anything I really cared about as a windork) were dropped from the upcoming release.

There couldn't be a larger piece of disinformation circulating the net right now.

Windows 2000 forever!

[Animats]

About half of corporate America is still running Windows 2000. And, after Vista comes out, probably half of corporate America will still be running Windows 2000, less further migration to Linux.

There just isn't enough new in Longhorn/Vista to justify the buy. Where's the return on investment here? Why buy a new computer for everybody in your call center? Hello?

There's nothing wrong with rendering the entire user interface in the GPU. Softimage was doing that under NT 4 in 1997, using OpenGL. It was clunky back then, but it's worked fine for years. Multiple windows tend to run slowly in OpenGL on Windows, but that's because of a common bug that allows only one window to update per refresh. Buffer swapping needs to be better worked out for the multiple window case. But all of this requires relatively minor improvements.

Re:Third party replacement

[Aadain2001]

Except that they are removing the GDI functionality. All GDI calls will just act as special wrapers back to the vector display calls. MS is not making this OS to be a simple upgrade from XP. They started from scratch and they are compartmentalizing or outright removing a lot of legacy stuff (which is good, it leads to better design overall). The GDI is one such module that has been removed.

HDCP the new enemy

[RentonSentinel]

If they think they can strong arm me into purchasing some DRM monitor they are absolutely off their rocker.

Now slashdotters, it is our mission to raise the awareness on these HDCP monitors. They are the new Palladium, the new NGSCB, the new (circuit city) divx.

I am feeling the red mist of rage!

Macintosh will be the viable "store bought" rig to recommend friends and relatives purchase. And for use, we will need to get Linux working with HD-DVD and Blu-ray in short order!

Re:HDCP the new enemy

[anubi]

DRM in the monitor, eh?

Does it use a CRT?

Nice, clean ANALOG RGB signals MUST be presented to the CRT cathodes before the tube can present an image.

And there are beautiful horizontal and vertical sync signals available at the deflection yoke.

Isn't this like selling some business a ten-foot thick steel door to protect the front of his business, while ignoring the cardboard wall next to it?

It makes a helluva lot of money for the steel door vendor, but does the businessman no good at all, matter of fact, its just a hinderance for his paying customers, no hinderance at all for the thief, who simply cuts through the cardboard wall.

This is the kind of "protection" one sells to the corporate tie-guy, not what you sell to people knowledgeable in the field.

Artificially Growing Demand

[Anonymous Coward]

The scenario is less like a monopoly and more like a desperate ploy to grow demand for hardware manufacturers. The current situation is that Windows XP provides all the functionality that most people need. Further, a 128-megabyte Pentium-III-powered box running at 500 megahertz is all the horsepower that most people need.

When the quality and quantity of supply stabilizes to exactly meet demand, something "terrible" happens. Manufacturers can compete on only 1 "feature": price. The price plummets, and the profit per machine is about $10.00.

Along comes Microsoft with a special deal (for the manufacturers): We will artificially build demand for more and newer hardware into the next operating system, and you manufacturers increase the kickback, per system, to $150 for the coffers of Microsoft.

A Fist Full of Errors!

[Nom du Keyboard]

Microsoft believes that you're going to see the amount of video memory being shipped on cards hurtle up when Vista ships.

Hurl chunks is more like it when I see the bill.

However, since 64-bit is handling data chunks that are double the size, you'll need double the memory, hence the 2GB.

You've got to be kidding with this statement. Does this person even understand the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit processors? I don't think so.

NCQ allows for out of order completions - that is, if Vista needs tasks 1,2,3,4 and 5 done, it can do them in the order 2,5,3,4,1

Excuse me, but Vista isn't the one doing the reordering of hard drive accesses. NCQ is done in the controller and drive itself.

NCQ is supported on SATA2 drives

And selected SATA-1 drives.

AGP is 'not optimal' for Vista. Because of the fact that graphics cards may have to utilise main system memory for some rendering tasks, a fast, bi-direction bus is needed - that's PCI express.

Will there be an AGP system left that can meet the rest of the Vista requirements? And I thought AGP had an option to use system memory in the specification as well.

no current TFT monitor out there is going to support high definition playback in Vista.

What if they release Vista, and nobody bought? If the consumers finally said We've had enough of this sh|t?

This isn't really Microsoft's fault - HDCP is something that content makers, in their eternal wisdom, have decided is necessary to stop us all watching pirated movies.

Oh yes it is Microsoft's fault. Without Microsoft enabling this the whole concept would be DOA. And Trusted Computing isn't even mentioned.

Tell me again, please. What is the compelling reason to upgrade to Vista?

Re:A Fist Full of Errors!

[Nom du Keyboard]

So what does happen to memory consumption when the size of the base datatypes doubles?

A 32-bit integer takes up the same amount of memory in a 64-bit system as in a 32-bit system. Just because your processor width has doubled does not mean you've automatically upsized all your variables. ASCII characters do not suddenly require 16-bits each, nor has Unicode ballooned to 32-bits/character. In short, the data in the database continues to occupy the same amount of bits as before -- not double.

Re:A Fist Full of Errors!

[Wesley Felter]

What if they release Vista, and nobody bought?

As if people have a choice. If you go to a computer store in 2007, every computer will have Vista preinstalled. (Except the Macs.)

What is the compelling reason to upgrade to Vista?

It doesn't matter, since most Windows sales come from new machines.

And it's not true..

[scsirob]

I'm typing this from my Vista beta install on a 3-year old Dell Dimension 4400, P4 1.7GHz, 512MB RAM and a Matrox P750 VGA card. Hardly a high-end PC these days. Even this first beta, it's been running well so far, does a lot better on suspend/resume than XP did for me and doesn't seem sluggish. Sure you'll be able to get more bells and whistles up and running on faster hardware, but I have no complaints this far..

Before you flame me for being a MS zealot, the Vista machine is next to my Slackware 10.1 box and my really old Pentium 166 that is installing SCO OpenServer 5.0.2 as I type this. Computers are fun, regardless of the OS they run..

Re:And it's not true..

[scsirob]

No, I'm running the latest available to beta testers (which I've been since 1994 or so), build 5112, downloaded strait from Redmond.

Vista will make better use of the GPU if that GPU supports the functions requested by Vista. If you use an older card like my Matrox it uses the same old technology as XP. In fact I'm running with the Matrox XP drivers, as Vista doesn't recognise the card by itself. Dual screen DVI setup with two Neovo X17 TFT's running at 1280x1024 each. Works like a charm..

Re:And it's not true..

[scsirob]

Ouch ;-) Flame hurt, just a bit... Still need to, I have some tools that I need to port to Unixware.

The company SCO sucks, but the product was not bad at the time. OpenServer 5.0.2 is from 1996, it was miles ahead of then-Linux 1.2.13 or so. Which I also ran from the old Yggdrasil compilations ;-)

Re:And it's not true..

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

Erm. Flame rescinded. Running 9 year old software for the fun of it qualifies you for an 'executive' nerd card that precludes all those incredibly nasty flames.

I still want to know whether you're missing functionality while running Vista on the mildly outdated hardware, btw.

Re:And it's not true..

[binarybum]

I don't see why Vista coming out would ruin your system like that.

  oh, wait,... are you actually going to install it?!

Re:And it's not true..

[PhraudulentOne]

...that is installing SCO OpenServer 5.0.2 as I type this

And you are worried about being flamed for running MS software?

Re:Third party replacement

[Aadain2001]

Check out the latest issue of MaximumPC. They had a very quick overview of Vista in it, and one of the issues it covered was the Vector graphics and the end of the GDI. It's on page 28, under the section on "Longhorn Display Driver Model" and is a very interesting read.

Windows 95(mostly) and NT were written from scratch. To a point so was 2000 (based off of NT). But XP was not written from scratch, it was an upgrade from 2000. Vista is not based on XP, it was a total rewrite. Why else would it be taking over 4 years of development work? If it was just a new UI and a few changes under the hood, it should have been out years ago. The only reason it could be taking so long is either a) they are idiots and can't program or b) they did a drastic rewrite of the whole OS from ground up.

Another take

[jothaxe]

Personally I am looking foward to Vista, and I see the hardware requirements as a positive thing. You can whine about MS all you want and complain about the hardware requirements, but why? As a developer of software I love the idea that the typical user's computer has steadily growing power. It opens the door to new and innovative applications and interfaces. Seriously, if Vista makes 3d graphics cards required and 3d API calls easily available to the developer, can you imagine the possibilities for the improvements in typical GUIs? I think that the software GUI will only truly take another step forward when it has the firm support of the GPU behind it. You can argue with me if you like, but I see no way around this.

SATA NCQ does *NOT* give SCSI performance

[tlambert]

SATA NCQ does *NOT* give SCSI performance.

This is not to say it's not a hell of a lot more useful than not being able to do disconnected writes at all, but pre-insertion of write barriers instead of post insertion via scheduling is really a poor-man's version of I/O concurrency.

Unless you go out of your way to do a FUA (Force Unit Access), on SATA, there is no guarantee that write data has been committed to stable storage, rather than just cache.

In SCSI tagged command queueing, you can be guaranteed that the write has been committed to stable storage before the write is acknowledges as completed (yes, it's optional to turn this off in mode page 2, but only idiots do it).

The upshot of this is that the OS must issue FUA on writes and stall the pipeline for other writes that don't require a commitment to stable storage (e.g. FUA for metadata and journalling, no-FUA for other data).

This is (effectively) the difference between DOW (Delayed Ordered Writes) and SU (Soft Updates), which is what makes SU so much more effective than DOW.

Further, it means that the OS can't use the acknowledgement to schedule future operations on the disk, without knowing ahead of time the FUA is necessary for a given write.

The issue here is that if I'm, for example, updating the contents in a single directory entry block on disk in two different processes, instead of deciding to delay the second update until I know the first one has completed (via the acknowledgement), I must issue the first one as an FUA command, and then the second one as an FUA command, which adds latency to my pipeline.

"Mr. SATA, I've worked with Mr. SCSI, and you're no Mr. SCSI".

-- Terry

Actually, this will probably be good for Microsoft

[Zedrick]

I once had a colleague who was training to get an MCSE. Out of curiosity I took a look at the introduction course, at the very begining they were bragging about how Windows NT consisted of 50 gazillion-something lines of code.

Now, most Slashdotters would read that and say:
"bloated software."

The average non-techie computer user will think:
"wow!"

When seeing these silly requirements for Vista (oh, what a stupid stupid stupid name!), most Slashdotters are thinking:
"Incompetent idiots."

The average non-techie computer user will think:
"wow!"

Why so much VRAM for GPU-driven display?

[Logic Bomb]

Mac OS X 10.4 is capable of rendering the entire interface using the GPU (they call it Quartz Extreme). The system delivers some incredibly cool visual effects (see Core Image), and it does it on systems with as little as 64 MB of VRAM on the graphics card. So what the hell is Vista going to do where 256 will be optimal?

Re:Why so much VRAM for GPU-driven display?

[smallduck]

Quartz Extreme doesn't totally shift rendering to the video card, only compositing.

The 3d scene that is an OS X desktop today is comprised of a relatively small number of surfaces, i think like one or two for each window, maybe each doc icon, each menu that pops up, and so forth. The contents of each of those are for the most part still drawn with the CPU into a backing store by the drawing subsystem Quartz 2D (or Quickdraw if your app is rockin' old school).

In old OS X, the "Quartz Compositor" (don't confuse with "Quartz Composer" a new app in 10.4) ran in a CPU process, compositng the backing stores to the screen with transparency effects, transformations, drop shadows, etc. Quartz Extreme is the change that shifts this compositing program onto the GPU instead. Now, for example, transprency and transformations effects that could not be done for OpenGL windows or video (which bypass the backing store system, and so the old compositor), now all works great and with no CPU hit.

Developed for OS X 10.4 is something called "Quartz 2D Extreme" (don't confuse with plain "Quartz Extreme") which pushes more of the rendering work onto the GPU (and probably moving all of the backing stores into VRAM), which probably makes it more equivalent to Longhorn new model. I believe even in 10.4.2, it still cannot by switched on (i wonder why, hmm, perhaps it needs more VRAM than available on today's machines?).

OEM Windows

[CaptainPinko]

Hoe much do you want to bet that Microsfot realizes that most people only pay for Windows when they buy it with their computer thus they will aim to require a new computer for each next majour release?

Re:640 GB should be enough for anyone...

[b100dian]

I wonder what this will do to gaming..
256 MB Video ram for the game..
256 MB Video ram for the MessageBox that says 'Cannot initialize DirectX'
4 GB of ram so you can see the messagebox the same day you ran the game.. priceless!

Fsck Hollywood

[Detritus]

Fsck Hollywood, if they think that I am going to replace perfectly good displays, which weren't cheap, with HDCP-capable displays, just so that I can cater to their paranoia about piracy. These same asshats expect home theatre owners, who've spent thousands of dollars on high-definition video hardware, to dump their current hardware because it doesn't support HDCP.

HD-DVD and BluRay can join DAT, SACD, and DVD-Audio as formats that were killed by greed.

Re:Third party replacement

[banuk]

a little from column a a little from column b

with apologizies to Matt Groening

Uh what?

[TommyBear]

Why do people keep talking about Vista requiring a minimum of 512MB of RAM and a video card with 256MB of video memeory? I've seen beta 1 running on a laptop with an intel video card (16MB) and 256MB of main ram! While it didn't run optimally, it did run okay.

This is like the craziest urban myth ever! Perpetuated by geeks the world over. Geeez! Unless of course Beta 2 is a major departure from Beta 1. Get your hands on Beta 1, if you care, and have a look everyone.

Perhaps I'm missing something

[complexmath]

2GB is the ideal configuration for 64-bit Vista, we're told. Vista 32-bit will work ideally at 1GB, and minimum 512. However, since 64-bit is handling data chunks that are double the size, you'll need double the memory, hence the 2GB.
Does this make sense to anyone? It sounds like he thinks the memory footprint of all applications will double just because the address size has. Or perhaps this is just what they're going to tell users when the next version of MS Word occupies 200 megs of RAM.

Games at Work!

[lexbaby]

Just think! Every computer around the world (home, work, laptops, and "Mactells" might as well ship with the same hardware specs) will be a sweet game machine. Think of the kind of LAN traffic corporations will see now.

At least it won't be surfing the web that will kill productivity.

Already done!

[fbonnet]

It's called Direct3D software renderer

The Vista Cruiser...

[kaoshin]

I performed a test installation of the Vista Beta 1 (build 5112) on a Dell C640 Latitude laptop, which is equipped with a modest Mobility Radeon 7500C and 16MB graphics memory, and 256MB system RAM. I didn't do benchmark tests, but I can say that although the installation took almost FOREVER (seriously, I drove home, went to lunch, came back and it was still nowhere near complete) and the installation media was HUGE, the resulting ghost image itself was only 1.1GB compared to a base XP ghost image of half that size which I don't think was too terrible in the disk space department. The OS itself ran only a little slower than XP SP2 does under those hardware limitations. There were noticeable lags, but it functioned as well as I would expect anything Microsoft related to function on limited specs. I personally think the new interfaces are cute, but doesn't hold a candle to aqua or enlightenment, etc. I work for a corporation with a little under 30,000 users and the word from the boss is that we are not going to go to a Windows Vista image (which means, unless they get screwed into having to).

Correction - 32 meg of RAM

[Anonymous Coward]

The latest iBook has a Radeon 9550 with only 32 meg of RAM. However, it can use all of the Core Image functionality.

I agree with you...it's a shocking comparison. OSX ran on ibooks which had ATI Radeon cards with 16 meg of memory, if I recall correctly. OSX looks far better than any Longhorn/Vista screenshot I have seen. What the hell are Microsoft doing that requires 16x the video memory and looks worse?

Airtight seal

[tepples]

Nice, clean ANALOG RGB signals MUST be presented to the CRT cathodes before the tube can present an image. And there are beautiful horizontal and vertical sync signals available at the deflection yoke.

And if you break the airtight seal, the monitor won't do an HDCP handshake anymore.

The real reason...

[angelasmark]

I'm convinced I know the real reason MS needs you to have spiffy video card. We've all pissed clippy off by making fun of him... Now we're gonna log into windows and BAM! 3D clippy. And if he finds open office icons on your desktop hes gonna kick them around like soccer balls so Joe6Pack can't use it... thats my conspiracy theory of the day....

Not quite.

[Some Random Username]

The native integer type will stay 32 bit. AMD64 is an LP64 architecture, so longs and pointers will be 64 bits, ints stay 32 bit. And longs getting bigger really doesn't matter, people using longs for anything besides pointer math are being dumb anyways, and should fix their code. Having 64 bit longs just allows people who need 64 bit integers to have them without resorting to the slow "long long".

So really, its just pointers doubling in size that should effect your memory usage. This will not do anything remotely close to doubling the memory usage of an OS. We've had 64 bit architectures and OSs for years, you can look at them to see what kind of memory requirement increase to expect.

Insightful?

[p3d0]

Every pointer in every data structure now requires twice as much memory. I can't say for all programs, but in the Java world (where I work), about half of memory typically contains pointers. Therefore you expect to see a 50% increase in memory consumption.

CPU stacks now have 8-byte entries, so they are pretty much always twice as big.

AMD64 code is quite a bit bigger than IA32 code. Most estimates say 15%.

None of these double your memory requirements, but it's probably easier for them to prereq 2GB of ram than 1.4GB.

Re:Insightful?

[Tim C]

but in the Java world (where I work), about half of memory typically contains pointers

Ok, I know you put "typically" in there, but it really depends on what you're doing. If you have multi-megabyte data structures (eg in a large cache to reduce db traffic) then I'd be very surprised if you had that many pointers relative to actual data. Of course, it depends on the structure of your data structures...

it's probably easier for them to prereq 2GB of ram than 1.4GB.

Possibly, but it's also easier and more purchaser-friendly to say 1.5GB rather than 2GB.

Bottom line though is that I simply don't believe the requirements. XP32 runs fine in 128MB of RAM. Sure, you wouldn't want to run Doom 3 on that, but the OS is fine. I refuse to believe that Vista64 is going to require 16x the RAM. If nothing else, the PC market simply isn't ready for home machines that are that close to maxing out their RAM.

(Typical "32bit motherboards" support up to around 3-4GB of RAM; I don't know about ones for 64bit CPUs, but at this end of the market I can't see it being much higher)

Re:Insightful?

[AaronLawrence]

about half of memory typically contains pointers

No, it doesn't. That's silly. Even in the most extreme case 90% of memory contains DATA.

The only way that half of memory would be pointers is if your entire computer's memory had a tree or list of integers, and what use is that? All real applications, even computational ones, contain lots of data: strings, images, documents.

The two biggest users of memory on most computers would be cache (whether the file system, or database pages, or web pages), and images (icons, web browser pictures, game textures).

Re:Insightful?

[Bloke down the pub]

"Of course, it depends on the structure of your data structures..."

Are you sure? I thought it depended on the structure of the structure of your data structures.

Re:Mac guys, this is your cue!

[GaryPatterson]

As a Mac user... ... but seriously - I don't think GPU screen rendering is a bad thing. Microsoft are going in the right direction by offloading that sort of donkey work.

But why such a powerful GPU? If Apple can achieve the same thing using a minimum of 32MB (like my little iBook), why can't Microsoft?

What's the compelling reason for such a hefty GPU requirement? Do you have to launch Doom III to 'delete' files? This is serious GPU power here, and if it's just rendering windows it seems to be poorly optimised.

Maybe it's a beta thing, and by the time it ships you can get by with lower GPU requirements.

Resources

[Eric604]

I thought the primary purpose of an OS is to manage resources, not to eat it.

We Told You So

[Master of Transhuman]

You want to stay with Microsoft?

You pay the hardware cost.

I can't wait until the corporations see that every secretary in the office has to have 2GB of RAM - or they have to support 2000 and XP themselves after "end of life" - which will be about five minutes after Vista ships, since Gates may be an asshole, but he's not stupid.

I can't wait to see the minimum disk space, too. Forget about putting Vista on a Bart's PE flash drive...even if you have a 4GB one.

wank

[smash]

To render the screen in the GPU requires an awful lot of memory to do optimally - 256MB is a happy medium, but you'll actually see benefit from more

Funny how MacOS X has managed just fine on a 32meg card for the past couple of years... even Tiger.

Microsoft is trying to tell us that rendering a Windows desktop requires more 3d memory capacity than the PS2 uses for something like Gran Turismo 4? That their own X box has 1/4 the capacity needed to render a Windows desktop?

Pfft..

smash.